Stakeknife inquiry chief voices concern over timing of fresh documents from MI5

The police chief investigating murders allegedly carried out by Freddie Scappaticci, a British agent in the IRA known as Stakeknife, has expressed alarm that hundreds of pages of files providing "new investigative leads" have been found by MI5 a year after Scappaticci's death.

- Daniel Boffey

Sir Iain Thomas Livingstone, a former head of Police Scotland who leads Operation Kenova, has written to the Northern Ireland secretary, Hilary Benn, to highlight the troubling timing and warn that the new intelligence raises questions about MI5's previous claims of knowledge about Stakeknife.

Scappaticci, who was accused of torturing and murdering multiple victims while simultaneously running an IRA enforcement unit and working for the British state in the 1980s, escaped justice when he died in hiding last April at the age of 77.

Operation Kenova has been investigating Stakeknife's crimes for nearly eight years and had been promised unfettered access to intelligence by the security services. Despite this, an interim report in March by Livingstone's predecessor, Jon Boutcher, had complained of apparent attempts by MI5 to stall the investigation.